I’ve been keeping it up for about 2/3rds of a month by now, so it seems to have worked quite well: I have made my first major step towards being productive. I did it with several tricks.
One: At the end of every day, make a to-do list for tomorrow, and set it as my computer background. Now, every time I get on the computer, I am reminded of which task I am supposed to do.
Two: Logging where all my time goes. I can look at the weeks and identify productive and non-productive times, have ready outside view information available on how long something will take, etc.
Three: (Well, I’m still in the process of forming this habit. Not solidified yet.) I set things up so that every time I get on the internet, an online timer pops up. It forces me to precommit to how long I want to be on. If it rings and I am not doing important work, I get off immediately. Plus, it forces only checking important sites.
Four: Having an imaginary friend to brainstorm future plans with, bounce new ideas off of, stare judgmentally at me if I am doing some outrageously useless thing, give advice, provide helpful daily reminders, and talk about feelings with. Very effective in getting me to switch from “This sucks” mode into “What can be done about this?” mode.
Something I’ve noticed about productivity: It only provides a marginal speedup in getting work done. The total amount of things to do remains the same. The main advantage is that it turns all the little “procrastination breaks” through the day into an hour or two of free time all in one big chunk. It consolidates non-used time so something cool can be done with it. And I now rarely have to stress about deadlines. I have only had to use caffeine once in the past month.
I’ve been keeping it up for about 2/3rds of a month by now, so it seems to have worked quite well: I have made my first major step towards being productive. I did it with several tricks.
One: At the end of every day, make a to-do list for tomorrow, and set it as my computer background. Now, every time I get on the computer, I am reminded of which task I am supposed to do.
Two: Logging where all my time goes. I can look at the weeks and identify productive and non-productive times, have ready outside view information available on how long something will take, etc.
Three: (Well, I’m still in the process of forming this habit. Not solidified yet.) I set things up so that every time I get on the internet, an online timer pops up. It forces me to precommit to how long I want to be on. If it rings and I am not doing important work, I get off immediately. Plus, it forces only checking important sites.
Four: Having an imaginary friend to brainstorm future plans with, bounce new ideas off of, stare judgmentally at me if I am doing some outrageously useless thing, give advice, provide helpful daily reminders, and talk about feelings with. Very effective in getting me to switch from “This sucks” mode into “What can be done about this?” mode.
Something I’ve noticed about productivity: It only provides a marginal speedup in getting work done. The total amount of things to do remains the same. The main advantage is that it turns all the little “procrastination breaks” through the day into an hour or two of free time all in one big chunk. It consolidates non-used time so something cool can be done with it. And I now rarely have to stress about deadlines. I have only had to use caffeine once in the past month.